GRE Reading Comprehension Strategy: Passages, Question Types and Traps

ETS says that typically about half of the Verbal questions are based on passages, and that each passage carries between one and six questions. Most passages are a single paragraph; one or two are several paragraphs long. The material is adapted from academic and nonacademic books and periodicals across the physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, business, the arts and humanities, and everyday topics.

No specialized knowledge is assumed. ETS is explicit that every question can be answered from the passage, and it advises against relying on outside knowledge or on your own views when they conflict with the text. If a passage feels particularly hard or unfamiliar, ETS suggests you may want to leave it for last.

ETS describes three formats for reading questions. Knowing their rules prevents avoidable errors, especially on the multi-answer type.

ETS recommends reading and analyzing the passage before looking at the questions, and it lists the relationships worth tracking. Turn those into a quick set of questions you ask as you read: what is the main point, which ideas support it, which claims does the author actually hold, and which are merely reported or offered as speculation?

Pay attention to transitions. Words such as however, yet, indeed and for example show how one idea relates to the next, whether as contrast, support, elaboration or application. After each paragraph, summarize it in a few words in your head. Those summaries become the map you use to locate answers without rereading everything.

ETS warns against choices that are only partly true, that only partly answer the question, or that are true statements but do not answer what was asked. In practice, wrong answers tend to fall into a handful of families. Naming the family is faster than rereading the passage.

When you review a missed question, write down which of these families the choice you picked belonged to. After twenty or so reviews, one or two families usually stand out, and that tells you what to watch for.

The passage below was written for this guide and does not describe a real study. For decades, museum curators treated the labels beside paintings as neutral aids: brief, factual and easy to ignore. A newer line of criticism holds that labels do considerably more. By choosing which details to mention, a label steers the viewer's attention, and by naming a school or movement it quietly tells the viewer how to classify what is on the wall. Some curators reply that most visitors skip the labels, so their influence is easily overstated. Yet that reply shifts the concern rather than removing it, since a visitor who reads no label at all is still guided by the order of the rooms, a sequence chosen by the same curators.

Question 1, select one. The primary purpose of the passage is to: (A) argue that museums should remove labels; (B) describe how curators choose which paintings to acquire; (C) present a criticism of museum labels, note a response to it, and argue that the response does not dispose of the underlying concern; (D) show that most visitors ignore labels; (E) compare two schools of painting. The answer is C. A is too strong, since nothing proposes removing labels. B is outside the scope. D is the wrong speaker, because it states the curators' reply, which the author disputes. E is irrelevant.

Question 2, select one or more. Which of the following can be inferred about the author? (A) The author believes curatorial choices influence visitors even when labels go unread. (B) The author believes most visitors read every label. (C) The author regards the older view of labels as neutral aids as incomplete. The answer is A and C. The last sentence supports A directly, and the author's sympathy with the newer criticism supports C. B has no support: the author never disputes the curators' point that many visitors skip labels, and nothing suggests most visitors read every one.

Question 3, select in passage. Select the sentence in which the author answers an objection. The answer is the final sentence, beginning with yet. The sentence before it states the objection; it does not answer one.

Verbal sections mix passages with shorter completion questions, and ETS allows you to move backward and forward within a section. That flexibility is useful. One workable approach is to answer the short completion items first and then give the remaining time to passages, while another is to take questions in order and mark any passage that stalls you. Whatever order you choose, practice it in timed sections before the retake so it is a habit rather than an improvisation.

For extra practice, RetakePrep offers daily 20-question drills drawn from your three weakest areas, with an explanation after each answer, which helps you see which wrong-answer family catches you most.